Thats a thought, just saving it to the desktop. It'll be a small thing to re organize of an evening.
As you say, his teacher has suggested using a tablet so a tablet may be the best way forward. My brother-in-law following a brain injury, has short term memory loss and severe learning difficulties. He had never used a computer or a laptop and to maintain his day to day life it was essential he makes notes. Even he cannot read his writing and of course forgets what it was all about. I bought him a mini iPad and he uses two apps to take notes including those at long meetings. One was Pages (now redundant by the Hanx), and the other Hanx Writer. The Hanx Writer he says is the best and so basic and quick to use and allows you to pick the format for imputing notes including one which looks and sounds like an old fashioned typewriter. The problem will be he will need a French "keyboard". A French version is sold on iTunes fr but I am not sure if it has the correct keyboard. In the States it is very popular with high school students. Maybe another idea would be for him (or his teacher) to use a digital voice recorder. Then you could at home help him to do his notes. I have one which downloads and transcribes into text but it did cost a great deal of money and I was given it free. Hope this helps.
I was laughed at for years at school for drawing & scribbling on an artists' pad rather than having a paper file! I teach my pupils mindmapping as soon as I get them - as a way of getting beans in a row for oral presentations/essays/dissertations as well as remembering, they are hugely useful. There is mindmapmaking software around but I have a major quibble in that what I have seen so far for pcs isn't nearly as fluid and versatile as I'd like it to be. I think software developed specifically for tactile tablets would be a lot better, so you could just shove stuff around - the problem for Karen's son being writing though would mean that what we have on offer at school might be a bit restrictive. But worth trying.
That looks interesting. It has also reminded me that OneNote is a pretty useful bit of software to help in this situation.
Hi Karen, yes, kids with special needs have a tough time and, to the best of my knowledge of school systems , they don't get much of a break anywhere, so I wouldn't worry too much about France being worse than other countries. I have never had special needs kids in big, mainstream classes, so I wouldn't be able to give much advice, but I did search online and came up with this software http://www.apedys.org/dyslexie/telechargement/projet_ordi.pdf
There are schools specialising in special needs, while remaining mainstream, would that be an option?
That’s what I’d do.
Have you considered teaching him MindMapping Karen? There are a few programs around, and you just record key words and images so no problem with lots of note-taking. You can do it just with a few coloured pens and paper too.
I taught my daughter when she was about 13 (she has no special needs) and she had the whole GCSE Biology syllabus, for example, on just one big MindMap on her bedroom wall for revision. Other girls at her school laughed at all her little 'spider' drawings, but when they were re-reading their 300 pages of notes while she had just one or two MindMaps for each subject, they took an interest. When she got 7 A*'s and 4A's they all wanted her to teach them!
Developed by Tony Buzan, lots of info if you Google Mind Maps. Hope that's useful.
Hi Karen, it might be worth looking for some project management software. I know it sounds strange, but there are a few good programs to help with organisation, which after all is the basis of project management.
Yes, I was suggesting an EHD as a back-up. This is what I do with my own folders - they are on my desktop, all my docs for each class go into them, I have pupil files & my own files & they go into the relevant folder or sub-folder. I also have a number of big memory sticks so I just plug them into classroom computers & don't need to take my laptop with me. Everything I have for school is 1. on my laptop 2. on the relevant memory stick & 3. on an EHD plus I have stuff on my school session desktop as & when I need it, along with school specific software licenced to lycée that I don't have at home.
It is really easy to create a load of folders, customise them and put in a number of document templates ready to go.
We used to organise files so that the children would open a pre prepared file, work on it then save it. That way they didn’t have to understand filing systems until they were ready. The directory could be organised in a number of ways, whichever you considered the most logical for your son. It has nothing to do with the software being used but where and how it is saved. You could organise the directory by subject, day of the week or any other classification you choose. Personally I would recommend saving to a fixed hard drive on the first instance as removable drives can get mislaid and can be difficult to keep as the default drive.
Taking notes is one thing, saving files in an organised manner is something else. Are you hoping to find some software that will tie the two together?
"he has huge difficulty managing the various books and colored papers and equipment needed to get through a school day."
This is why having everything on a notebook is easier, at least it appears so for my pupils with a diagnosis of dyspraxia. There aren't all the confusing other things to cart about for one thing and as long as he has the notebook he is sure that he has everything. It will also make it a lot easier for his teachers to deal with and they will consequently be more patient (- it isn't that we aren't patient, it is just that we have up to 38 pupils in any given class and we haven't got time to spend 10 minutes looking through someone's file for the bit of paper they were sure they had , while they get more & more distressed and the others get silly or mean). print-outs are fine for working on with someone else who will write on them but but the way to go is everything on a notebook just for school (so no games etc) which will be a lot more efficient.
I am assuming he will be using word or open office or the like for creating documents, taking notes etc - there really isn't anything simpler. Does he use a computer much at the moment? If so he is probably more clued-up than you might think... he can also just take notes and leave them on the desktop and put them in files every evening when he comes home, he needs to reread the leçon and learn it every day as it is so that will help him see what has been done in the day, then he can file it with no time pressure.
He's is 5eme. That is definitely something we could work towards, memory sticks and a laptop. Like you say he needs to gradually learn what works for him in order to become autonomous. I was thinking of the print outs for him, so that he has his lessons printed out to learn, as they have to do regularly.
Maybe I am not explaining the 'lack of organization' clearly enough. Its not just a case of a kid being a bit scatty here, if so lots of children would have an AVS. He has special needs, he has huge difficulty managing the various books and colored papers and equipment needed to get through a school day. His brain is just not wired to deal with it. So knowing this, just using windows and word or something similar would not work at the moment. Although I am confident that in time he could move on to that for sure.
? I'm confused now. You tell a computer what to do, it is just a tool - you can print everything from a memory stick if you want a paper version but he can have all the notes he has taken in a dedicated folder for each subject on his desktop, as well as on subject-specific memory sticks - they can be colour-coded for ease and it is easier than with paper, quite apart from anything else there isn't so much to cart around. 13 isn't by any means too young to get sorted with IT but if you think he isn't organised enough to deal with that then it could be your job at home and the AVS's at school to teach him, my pupils who are now proficient had to learn as well, and they don't necessarily have an AVS or a parent to help them!
There is no point trying to make everything the way it is in class for the other students, he isn't like the other students, they can see that and they won't expect him to do things the same - speaking purely as a teacher, in order to succeed, he needs gradually to become as autonomous as possible - if he uses a pc and sets of memory sticks he will become more and more autonomous and eventually he won't need the AVS. I'd rather have a devoir on a memory stick straight away than faff around waiting to get a printed version of work done in class.
What class is he in now? 4°? 3°? it would be better for him to get the hang of sorting his stuff out for school before he goes to lycée, where the workload is considerably heavier and with the best will in the world we can't hand-hold as much. He needs to get the file sorting cracked now rather than "in a few years' time" because in a few years' time he'll be doing the Bac.
As you say: " he has no problem with comprehension, or spelling, grammar etc, it is simply putting the pen to paper that he has difficulty with." he seems like a prime candidate for doing everything by notebook and his teachers should take it on board easily even if they need a pep talk from the PP first.
Easily organising his files isn't hard, just keep them on the desktop with back-up on an external hard drive you update regularly and use memory-sticks the way you would a paper file with stuff in it. You might have to help him sort out a system that is good for him at first and then make sure he sticks to it but if you sort docs by date + name within each folder it is a doddle, certainly much easier than the ghastly paper-mountain stuffed into a trieur that many children seem to have.
That is just good housekeeping and should be fairly straightforward to organise. In my experience Primary age children generally find file management straightforward but it all depends what platform you use.
I was hoping to find something that would help him easily organize his files, rather than straight forward windows. The main reason he has an AVS is to help him with organization. So whatever he uses, it needs to be super easy for him to keep everything in order. It is encouraging to know that your students Veronique are managing well. I am sure in a few years time he will manage with email, memory sticks etc but I think for now we need to take the notes and print them out. So it is as close as possible to the way things are in class with the other students. The key is to find something that ensures all files are saved away, no duplicates, or lost, easy to retrieve, easy to organize etc.
Any program that has a multilanguage spell checker would be suitable. I use Word on both my laptop and my iPad in English, French and German. On the laptop I just set the correct language and on the iPad the relevant keyboard. I presume that other tablets operate in a similar way. If he is happy typing on a tablet that might be the better option as they are small, always ready to go and have good battery life.
I have had several pupils who do all their work on a notebook pc, I had a boy in class last year who is dyspraxic, he didn't have an AVS but did all his work on his computer which he had with him all the time, tests were handed in on a memory stick which I gave him back next lesson - you don't need a huge one so one per subject is affordable. He sent me his prep by email. In exams he gets a tiers temps (an extra third so eg four hours instead of 3 in the Bac) and a printer connected to a school laptop so work can be handed in on paper. I don't think he had any particular software though. He types extremely fast and accurately and this is down to practise and having lessons, so that having to type isn't a handicap under time constraints. This is in Lycée though, not collège.
I don't think that, bar having documents available to transfer from pc to memory stick or from an interactive whiteboard to a memory stick, there is that much we can do in class if we have someone who doesn't write - they are going to have to write at some stage because the system is heavily based on assessment of written tasks. Getting good at using a pc is probably the best solution if as you say there is no problem where comprehension/spelling/grammar are concerned. For work at home a voice recognition software package might help but is a bit fiddly to set up (or used to be) as you have to train the programme to recognise your voice or it isn't accurate.
As a small child at prep school, I used to have to dictate my exam answers to a scribe, because my motor skills weren't up to writing fast enough (I was 3 years younger than my classmates), it was incredibly frustrating - at least things have moved on a bit since then.